Samuel M. Green, Art Professor, 85

Published: April 19, 1995

Samuel Magee Green, a professor emeritus of art at Wesleyan University, died last Wednesday at a convalescent home in Middletown, Conn., the town where he lived. He was 85.

Mr. Green, an accomplished water colorist and painter, was born in Oconomowoc, Wis. He was a graduate of Harvard University, where he also received a doctorate in art history in 1937.

He taught at Wellesley College and Harvard and created an arts department at Colby College in Waterville, Me., before he joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1948. He retired in 1974.

He was the author of the textbook "American Art: A Historical Survey" (1966), which served as a syllabus for college art and architecture courses.

He was a former director of the New England Historical Society and took part in Wesleyan's restoration of the 1840 Alsop House on High Street on the university campus. In addition to raising funds, he researched the origins of the building, which now houses the Davison Art Center.

Features of the house's interior are reproduced in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Charles Dickens once referred to Middletown's High Street as "the finest street in America."

Mr. Green is survived by his wife, Helen,; two sons, Jonathan, of Phoenix, and Samuel, of New York City; a daughter, Gwynthlyn H. Green of Higganum, Conn., and three grandchildren.